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Why I regretted buying an SSD

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Last response: in Storage
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So I bought a Samsung 830 240GB SSD a couple of days ago and it works great, but I think it was a bad investment.

I'm used to having one HDD and not having to worry about capacity. When I added the SSD, I suddenly had to worry about space, even if I had my old HDD as a secondary drive.

I had to spend the time changing all my VirtualBox VMs to run off of D: drive, had to change configuration options for some software like Apache and PHP, change default folders for various pieces of software so they would use the D: drive and a plethora of other, smaller issues involved in having two drives instead of one and thinking about freeing space on one of them.

So I spent $240 on the drive, spent 4-5 hours installing Windows and other software I need, and finally 1-2 hours working out various issues with using the D: drive instead of C: in some situations.

Sure, my system boots like a minute faster now, but I reboot maybe once a week tops anyway, obviously same with shutting down. The way I see it, I spent $240 and an entire day (time=money) so I could save myself a couple of minutes a day on disk operations. How long until that pays off?

Just something to keep in mind if you're thinking about getting an SSD. It never occurred to me until a couple of minutes ago and now I wish I bought something else.

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Nothing can give you back the time you spent obviously, but:

mklink /D

Solves almost everything I've encountered, rather than having to mess with defaults, just redirect as needed. If you are a gamer SteamMover is also handy.

You can also move your Users directory and your ProgramData directory so that data isn't immediately stored on your SSD:
http://lifehacker.com/5467758/move-the-users-directory-... (I've heard this is broken, I know it can be massaged to work, but I'm not sure what I've done differently to make it work, if your interested, let me know and I'll figure it out for you, as it works perfectly for me)
or
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/window... (This would require a fresh install, but I've been told it works well, be sure to add links from C:\Users to D:\Users)

Also, while it would likely take a very long while for the time you spent to setup your new HDD to pay off; consider that you've invested excess time now into saving time when you may be in a hurry.

oste0130 said:
Those SSDs are on sale at Micro Center for $180. Sorry you paid way more than you needed to.


That's a good deal, but the closest Micro Center is 4200 miles from me.





djscribbles said:
mklink /D


I didn't know about this, thanks. Also, good point about saving time when I'm in a hurry. Just now I was in a hurry to change something in Illustrator and was puzzled for a moment when it started up and opened a file in like two seconds instead of usual ten or so. It's not really the actual time saved but a feeling that everything is quick and fluid which makes work less stressful.
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killerclick said:
...It's not really the actual time saved but a feeling that everything is quick and fluid which makes work less stressful.

But there IS Actual time saved, on top of it being less stressful! ;) 

killerclick said:
So I bought a Samsung 830 240GB SSD a couple of days ago and it works great, but I think it was a bad investment.

I'm used to having one HDD and not having to worry about capacity. When I added the SSD, I suddenly had to worry about space, even if I had my old HDD as a secondary drive.

I had to spend the time changing all my VirtualBox VMs to run off of D: drive, had to change configuration options for some software like Apache and PHP, change default folders for various pieces of software so they would use the D: drive and a plethora of other, smaller issues involved in having two drives instead of one and thinking about freeing space on one of them.

So I spent $240 on the drive, spent 4-5 hours installing Windows and other software I need, and finally 1-2 hours working out various issues with using the D: drive instead of C: in some situations.

Sure, my system boots like a minute faster now, but I reboot maybe once a week tops anyway, obviously same with shutting down. The way I see it, I spent $240 and an entire day (time=money) so I could save myself a couple of minutes a day on disk operations. How long until that pays off?

Just something to keep in mind if you're thinking about getting an SSD. It never occurred to me until a couple of minutes ago and now I wish I bought something else.


Hmmm. I bought one, did just what you did, had no problems, took less than 30 minutes, love it for many reasons, the least of which is fast boot times. Maybe the problem in your particular instance lies between the keyboard and the chair.

cbrunnem said:
why would you need to transfer things to your D drive? you should have a clean install to work with so nothing to transfer?

It's clear by the original post that it was not a clean new install... it was an image restore

dingo07 said:
It's clear by the original post that it was not a clean new install... it was an image restore


your clear must be my opaque then.

anyway Op you should have did a clean install of windows.

I'm sorry you had a bad experience - I hope anybody else that reads this thread will not be deterred to move into an SSD. They are great and yes you may have lost a day but in reality that is your own fault. A240GB drive is plenty for most people so that you are not constantly watching your space. Keep media on a regular HDD and the apps & OS on the SSD - pretty simple. And every time my favorite game or my PCB layout software loads I'm happy I'm using an SSD.
-Bruce

I love my SSD. I'm a noob, gamer, and internet surfer - in that order.

Virtual box (why not get a cardboard one), Apache (indian), PHP (new drug?) are all lost on me.

However, the wonder of my Intel 330, 180 GB SSD is off to on in 30 sec (with password entry !) and I loaded Win 7 crazy fast! My build took all day 'cause it was my first and I was careful. The entire thing works and the SSD is great. Sorry you have buyer's remorse.

On the bright side: HDD's are getting cheaper? Good luck with that apache (they can ride horses like crazy !) :) 

yes your "clean" install is misleading.

I had 3x WD Black 1tb Hard Drives in RAID 0. and a 200gb Partition for my OS and the ~2.8tb as a data partition, windows and all programs were installed on C while games and data on D. (as well as user folders on D, my docs, pics & etc)

i added 2x 128gb Vertex4 drives in RAID 0 to my system and ghosted my old 200gb C to the new SSD Raid volume.

it resulted in the same drive letter config. C drive being my SSD RAID 0 and D Drive being my HDD RAID 0.

was the best thing I ever did. system boots very quick, all general computing is lightening quick as well as i moved a couple of my most played games to C (ssd raid) and the load times are out of this world.

Unfortuantly you have had a bad experience (do to your own doing) dont let that distract from the awesome that an SSD is.

Now at work every time someone complains of a slow system i dont bother with a new computer, i just change the old SATA II HDD for an SSD and its like a new machine.

cbrunnem said:
why would you need to transfer things to your D drive? you should have a clean install to work with so nothing to transfer?


dingo07 said:
It's clear by the original post that it was not a clean new install... it was an image restore



I did do a clean install, but I have around 150 gigabytes of files I use and work with, and around 20 applications. I had to install applications on my C drive, put the 150 gigabytes on my D drive (they're not all in one place) and then tell every application to load, use and output files on the D drive instead of default C. No single application was a problem, but it takes time to set every option and check if it works properly.

And all that's in addition to installing everything anyway - it's not just Skype and Steam you know. I don't see how I could've done it much faster.

All in all, it's going to take a long time for SSD speed to pay off.
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